Summer Books: Gems From Indian Novelists

By Tim Neagle

You’ve finally gotten a little time off and have made your way to a warm, inviting beach. Spreading yourself out on the sand, you reach into your book bag for …what?
Individual taste comes into play here, of course.

And there are lots of suggestions out there – here’s a link from the New York Times on books authored by women. The Washington Post book editors also check in with some summer favorites. And not to be outdone, the Chronicle asked Bay Area notables to list some of their favorites

But our focus here is a bit narrower. When the British built their empire, one of the byproducts was spreading the English language around the world, and modern-day readers are reaping the rewards now. Specifically, I am talking about three novelists, either Indian or of Indian descent: Aravind Adiga, Kiran Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Adiga and Desai, who both live at least part-time in India, are winners of the prestigious Man Booker prize, given annually to the best novel from a writer in a country that was formerly a member of the British Empire or its Commonwealth. Adiga won in 2008 for his first novel, The White Tiger. Desai won the prize in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss. Lahiri, who was born of Indian parents in London and grew up in Rhode Island, won the Pulitzer Prize for best American fiction in 2000 for her collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies.

Despite similar ethnic backgrounds, the books could not be more different. Adiga’s White Tiger is a funny, angry book whose hero recounts the circumstances that saw him advance from unlettered peasant to respected entrepreneur: It is a journey that leaves him with blood on his hands. The book is also a scathing indictment of modern-day India, particularly the selfishness of its rich people.
Desai’s Inheritance of Loss takes a look at the devastating effect that colonialism has had on India. One elderly character, the Judge, has been educated at England and transformed into a sort of pseudo-Englishman. When he returns home to India, however, he finds he is not an Englishman, but neither is he an Indian any longer, an in-between status that poisons his life and leaves him embittered. A younger character in the book, desperate for identity, joins a radical nationalist group, one that causes him to turn against the people he loves to serve an uncertain cause.

Lahiri mines more personal ground. Her stories, both from her debut with Interpreter of Maladies to last year’s Unaccustomed Earth, plumb the depths of family relationships. Her characters are almost invariably Indian immigrants to the United States, and the generational conflicts that ensue between parents still tied to the old country and children who have been raise din the freewheeling American culture. Lahiri is very good at mining the paradox of family relationships: often the people we are closes to are the hardest to communicate with. While I have not read her novel The Namesake (or seen the movie version), I can wholeheartedly recommend both of her collections of stories.

So when you are looking for something to read this summer, try a book by the brilliant young writers of India!